Wolphie Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 Alright, I've been reading quite a lot about astro physics and physics in general, very interesting stuff! I'm sure a lot of people find it interesting too, at least I hope so! Well, something has been bugging me, today I've been reading a lot about 4 dimensional objects (specifically tesseracts aka hypercubes etc..), I understand that a tesseract can have an infinite number of rooms, if that was the purpose, I also know all of the dimensions, they assume that time is the 4th (not proven). But they also say that mass is another dimension, however, does a tesseract have a mass? I mean surely, if it had a mass, it would be huge to have an infinite amount of rooms. I know nobody can say for definite because we don't see in 4 dimensions. But I was just wondering if anybody had an opinion or theory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel0 Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 [...] they assume that time is the 4th (not proven). I know I'm just being picky, but in natural science it is not possible to prove anything (except in mathematics, but it doesn't count in this case). There are basically two methods. There is the inductive method where you through observations and experiments (your empirical data) can infer a theory. For instance, you could take an object, hold it out and release it a lot of times. All of the times the object dropped down and therefore you can, by observation, conclude that there must be a force pulling it downwards. BUT, you cannot possibly prove that the next time you release it then it will drop as well (although it is highly likely). Therefore it's impossible to prove anything. You can have a theory and that may be the "working" theory until someone else finds a better theory. Additionally there is the hypothetical-deductive method which essentially works the other way around. Here you make a hypothesis and then you make observations and experiments to check if your hypothesis fits with what you've found out. You can then conclude whether your hypothesis was valid or invalid. Using the "drop the object" analogy again you can "guess" that some force is pulling objects down thus making them drop to the ground instead of idly hovering in the air. Then you drop some objects repeatedly and conclude that there must be. This is obviously a very simple example, but it's merely to show the point. Also, both of these methodologies are equally valid to use. Man... this ended up longer than I intended. Sorry for going somewhat off-topic, but I just thought you might find it useful as an aspiring amateur physicist Edit: http://xkcd.com/386/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolphie Posted June 26, 2008 Author Share Posted June 26, 2008 Haha, thanks for the reply! Not what I initially expected but still an interesting one. I know a lot of things are just a theory, but it would be annoying if I were to point out that everything I was talking about is just a theory! Lol @ That picture! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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